My Real Teachers Pay Teachers Income in 2025 | Was It Worth It?

0:00If you're an educator and ever wondered how can I supplement my teacher pay and still have time for the rest of my life, then this video is for you. In this video, I'm going to talk about how much I made on teachers pay teachers in 2025. And I was blown away. I'm going to talk about my top selling resources and I'm

0:20going to talk about my plans for 2026. And I'm going to share with you how I bring in other sources of income through like working in the creator space and getting brand deals and all those sorts of things.

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0:51Welcome back to my channel. If you're new here, my name is Rachel from the Behavior Check-in. I'm a K through2 behavior specialist. I am also a TPT creator and I also do a lot of stuff in social media. And in today's video, I'm going to share with you how much I made in 2025 on Teachers Pay Teachers. I'm also going to talk about brand deals and how I get them and how I started working with brands even before I hit 10,000 followers on Instagram. So, if this kind of transparency is helpful for you, I want you to stop. Make sure that you give this video a like, you subscribe

1:25because I cover these things all the time about TPT and behavior strategies. And make sure that you share this out to somebody could help. It really helps grow my channel when you do these things. So, I started back in 2022, and I want to start with some context because I think this part really matters the most. In 2022, I made, drum roll please, $6.50 in sales and $2.97

1:52in earnings. I was getting real rich right there. That was it. No strategy, no audience, and no expectations. Obviously, in 2023, things picked up a little bit. We were starting to move along. I made $502 in sales and that was $399 in earnings. So, we were starting to get somewhere, right? That was the year that I realized, okay, this might actually work and started to really like focus in on things. Not full-time money, not even like serious money, just basically side hustle money, but it was a proof that I could do this. Then in 2024, I made $3,587 in sales and $2,853 in earnings. That's when I started

2:48becoming intentional with Teachers Pay Teachers. I narrowed down my niche, focused on behavior systems, and I stopped creating random resources. Now, let's get down to how much I made in 2025. In 2025, my Teachers Pay Teacher store earned $7,586. I took home over $6,000 cross $966 orders. This is the first year where I felt like I was really getting somewhere with TPT. And I was making a real income, not just like bonus money or like Starbucks money. So, the biggest reason for the growth was that I focused on what I was selling. I really like narrowed it down instead of just being unintentional and picking whatever I

3:33wanted to put on there. My top sellers in 2025 were my IEP and behavior tracking bundle, my ultimate behavior management bundle, my digital IEP goal progress tracker in Google Sheets, my IEP service minute tracker, and my case load and planning. So, here's the pattern. These weren't just like cute little worksheets. They were actually time-saving systems. And I discovered this is what teachers want. Teachers don't need more things. They need things to make their lives easier. They need fewer decisions. They need less paperwork. And I need things that I actually use. So I knew it would be beneficial for teachers, too. I really like used that to drive what I was

4:13creating as if it's something that would be helpful to me, not just something that I thought would sell. And I think that was the big change. So, if you want to see the exact tools I'm talking about, you can check out my Teachers Pay Teacher store and see if they'd be helpful for you. I will make sure to link that below. I also have some other videos where I do talk about how to use them if that's something you're interested in. So, you can pause the video later and take a look and see everything that I mentioned there. So,

4:372025 taught me a few big lessons. Bundles outperform every little single resource. Editable tools have a much higher value and teachers will pay for clarity and organization. I also learned you don't need to have hundreds of products and that back to school season matters a lot. I probably should have put in a lot more focus to back to school this year and that will be a goal for next year. But either way, I still

5:00did really well back to school season. What's my goal for 2026 after hearing what I did in 2025? So, my realistic goal, you may think I'm crazy, but is $20,000 on teacher pay teachers for earnings next year. I think I can do that. I know that it seems wild, but that's only like a 65% growth from 2025, and my past sales have shown that I can do that. So, I do really think that is reasonable when you already have an established store and you have proven products and repeat buyers and seasonal momentum. I've been on TPT for a while, so that means my products are getting more like ratings

5:44and they're coming up more in search and I think that's really helpful. You may be asking, how do I plan to get to $20,000? Well, here's my plan and it's pretty simple. I don't plan on stressing myself out. I'll be really honest. I think that now is the season for updating and improving what already sells and that is my main goal and I'm going to do that as I have energy. I'm not going to stress myself out. I plan on adding one or two level system resources but not dozens. I'm not going to stress myself out with creation this year. I'm also going to plan early for

6:17back to school. I'm going to be using my social media, YouTube and Instagram as growth funnels just so I don't have to rely completely on TPT search because that does it's not the most reliable way to sell your products. There's a lot of different products that you're competing with. So, I think social media promotion really does help and I'm going to continue to do that. So, let's talk about other income streams. So, TPT isn't my only income stream. I also earn through brand deals, sponsored content, and affiliate links. And here's something important. I started getting brand deals before I hit 10,000 followers on Instagram and before I hit

6:541,000 subscribers on YouTube. So, you don't need a large following to start getting brand deals. Most brands do find me through my Instagram. I would say that's kind of like my business card and through the pillar link in my bio. That's where I get most of my leads from. I really do like my pillar store that I have because it does have a media kit on there that I can password protect and brands can see that if they want to see it and it auto updates and looks really professional and I do really like that. That's how I do my media kit. When I first started and I created my own

7:27media kit, I did one through Canva. But I really love my pillar one because it auto updates which makes things easier and I don't have to spend all this time updating it because I don't have a ton of time and I know you all don't either. So, if you're interested in that, you can check out Pillar. I love Pillar because I link some of my products on there. It's just another source of income. And it's really helpful because brands can get on there and they can see my audience, my reach, my platforms, and how to contact me. They can see all those metrics before we even get into

7:58negotiations. And I think that really helps. One big thing that I want to stress is I only work with brands that I actually like and I feel aligned with. You're going to get a lot of random brands that reach out to you and it'll be tempting to take them, but try to be intentional. really try to pick things that you are behind and that you believe in. So, if you're interested in checking out my Teachers Pay Teacher Store and my resources or my pillar page, I will leave those below. Hopefully, this was helpful for you. Or if you have any questions and you would like me to cover

8:28something else in other video, I will absolutely do this. I really love watching these kinds of videos because I'm curious and nosy a little bit about how other people do. But, I just want to remind you that I am not a big-time seller. I am a real human. I'm a real teacher. I'm a real behavior specialist working in schools. I have kids and this is what I was able to do. So once again, like, share, subscribe, and I will catch

8:52you next Sunday.

9:02I [music] get the feeling it's a good night. [music]